This invention relates generally to diagnostic ultrasound systems, and more particularly, to method and system for measuring flow through a heart valve.
Diagnosing and assessing regurgitate flow jets within a patient's heart, such as mitral valve or tricuspid valve regurgitation or insufficiency, is challenging with currently available ultrasound systems. The flow patterns are often quite complex with time-varying geometries. Additionally, non-circular orifice areas pose a challenge to visualizing and measuring the flow through the actual orifice area.
When accessing a condition such as Mitral Regurgitation, the size of the regurgitate flow jets may be currently described with the Vena Contracta. The Vena Contracts is defined as the narrowest central flow region of a jet and can be depicted using color flow Doppler. Currently, the proximal isovelocity surface area method (PISA) is used to quantify the size of the flow jet. This method is a planar measurement which makes the assumption that the flow convergence zone is circular and symmetric. Unfortunately, this is seldom the case, and may result in erroneous calculations.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and system for improving the localization of the Vena Contracta to measure the flow through a heart valve. Certain embodiments of the present invention are intended to meet these needs and other objectives that will become apparent from the description and drawings set forth below.